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Supermassive Games is bookending the year in VR in much better form than it started. The Until Dawn developer’s first two games of 2018, PSVR’s The Inpatient and Bravo Team, have all but been forgotten following an unexpectedly lukewarm reception that led the team to vow it will do better in the future. Rest assured; Shattered State is better.

Launching today, Shattered State is the result of Supermassive’s first VR collaboration outside of Sony, this time appearing exclusively on Google’s Daydream platform. If you’ve been following Daydream’s exclusive output over the past few years you’ll know Google has been favoring more experimental VR experiences like So Let Us Melt to showcase its mobile ecosystem. Shattered State is very much a continuation of that trend; it’s a political thriller in which you’re not on the frontlines of conflict but instead behind a desk, calling the shots.

“This was an opportunity to take some of the learnings we got from The Inpatient in terms of VR storytelling, an opportunity to go into a new genre in terms of a political thriller, and the market’s very different,” Supermassive’s Simon Harris says of how the experience came to be. “When we’re building stuff for PlayStation VR, the PlayStation VR consumer has certain expectations. With something like Daydream, because it’s much more about people trying VR for the first time, there’s experimenting with new experiences. There’s a lot of things that are less ‘gamey’ for that sort of audience, so it was that perfect match.”

Shattered State is definitely less game, more choose your own adventure. Lasting about 40 minutes as one ‘play through’ but reaching much further thanks to the developer’s staple multi-choice formula, the game is like a distillation of everything that Supermassive is best known for squeezed into something around the length of a TV episode. Set in the wake of the creation of a new country, already uneasy tensions accelerate at an alarming pace as you try to put a stop to what’s looking increasingly like a coup. That means lots of important people with important jobs shouting various options at you, usually conflicting with a colleague and leaving you with the consequences.

We’ll have a full review for you in the near future but I was really struck by what Supermassive was trying to do here; create a VR experience the likes of which you genuinely won’t have seen in traditional gaming before. There’s an admirable element of stagecraft to the way in which characters bounce off of each other, stare you down and enter and exit scenes.

“VR has a completely different storytelling experience; you are present but, in the case of Shattered State, you don’t have a voice,” the team’s Steve Goss tells me. “So rather than being a character it’s more of a role that you fulfill. I think that was one of our big impulses, trying to find a really interesting role that a lot of people identify with.”

Indeed, Shattered State apes the hyper-serious, somewhat hamfisted and brooding atmosphere of shows

A regulatory filing confirms what’s been clear for some time — the IMAX VR experiment is over.

We first set eyes on IMAX VR’s efforts early last year with its well-equipped pods featuring HTC Vives and an early StarVR prototype we noted lacked the smoothness expected from a paid VR experience.

The location was also separated from a theater multiplex so it was unlikely to get much foot traffic — an odd choice for the premiere location of the IMAX brand of VR arcades. We’ve reported on earlier closures, but this latest filing is the nail in the coffin for IMAX VR.

From the filing:

In connection with the Company’s previously-announced strategic review of its virtual reality pilot initiative, the Company has decided to close its remaining VR locations and write-off certain VR content investments.

Many of the virtual worlds IMAX VR embraced for selling tickets were readily available on home VR systems. Other types of location-based VR, like The VOID and Dreamscape Immersive, however, have roll-outs planned heading into 2019 for a caliber of immersion that is unattainable at home. Some of those locations are in the highest foot traffic areas on the planet with brands like Ghostbusters or Star Wars offering exclusive experiences meant to draw people in — so we will be curious to see how those perform over time.

Borderlands 2 VR officially releases on PSVR tomorrow, December 14th, but you can read our full review of the game already right here. It’s a decent port of a great game that retains much of what makes the original so special, but it’s missing a few key things such as the great DLC, co-op support, and Aim controller support. Either way we enjoyed it and are excited to show it off today via livestream!

We’ll be playing Borderlands 2 VR on PSVR using two PS Move controllers, but we can show DualShock 4 gameplay as well if people are interested. We’re starting right around 2:45 PM PT and we’ll aim to last for around an hour or more. We’ll be livestreaming directly to the UploadVR Twitch page where you can interact with us directly and chat among yourselves. Streaming is something we’re going to double down on doing more often very soon so you should get in on the ground floor of our Twitch community early! You can see the full stream embedded right here down below once it’s up:

Make the most of this year’s festivities with the most convenient VR headset on the market. This year’s holiday festivities are just around the corner, which means so is the inevitable chaos of family gatherings, stressful last-minute shopping, and the seemingly endless amounts of cooking and baking. In all the holiday commotion, one can often

Stepping through into another dimension is easy, but can you get out in time? It’s always interesting to see what types of games become popular as a relativaly new platform continues to expand. And it’s often not what you’d expect. Even as AAA graphics and high-speed Internet access on smart devices became ubiquitous, it was

IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: sideloaded apps are by definition not vetted by Oculus. You install them “at your own risk”, as they could affect the security or stability of your headset.

There are 3 different types of apps/games you can sideload to your Go:

VR Apps: these are VR apps just like you’d download on the store, except either the developer didn’t want to put it on the store or Oculus rejected it.

Android TV Apps: these are media apps or simple games made for TVs. They will be displayed in the app list on the virtual screen in Oculus TV.

Android Phone Apps: these are regular Android apps meant for phones. You may have some input problems with them as they were designed for touchscreens. To see these apps in your Go, you’ll need TvAppRepo (listed below).

To learn how to sideload apps, follow our step-by-step guide: How To Sideload Apps And Games On Oculus Go

Here are our favorite sideloadable Go apps of all 3 kinds:

Netflix (Android)

The Oculus Store has a great Netflix app to let you watch all the company’s shows on a virtual screen. But this app is based off the TV build of Netflix, and that’s missing one important feature: downloads. Televisions don’t tend to have much storage, so this feature wasn’t needed. But your Go has gigabytes of storage just waiting for your favorite movies & TV shows.

Download Netflix Android app from APKMirror

Quake (VR)

First released in 1996, Quake is one of the most important first person shooter (FPS) games in the history of the genre. Quake was a huge leap forward, introducing new locomotion concepts such bunny hopping, strafe jumping, and rocket jumping.

Over 20 years later, you can play the entire game on your standalone VR headset. However, keep in mind that Quake’s fast pace will defeat all but the strongest of stomachs. If you get VR sick at all, avoid this title.

Fun fact: Quake’s lead programmers were John Carmack (Oculus CTO) and Michael Abrash (Oculus Chief Scientist). This makes Quake a perfect match for Oculus Go, the headset which was Carmack’s pet project.

Download QuakeGVR from GitHub

TvAppRepo (Android TV)

At the top of the article we’ve listed the 3 different types of apps you can sideload on your Go. However, to be able to actually launch any of the regular Android phone apps, you’ll need TvAppRepo.

This is a useful app which allows you to generate Android TV shortcuts for these apps, and thus view them from Oculus TV. It also has a list of Android TV apps which you can download.

If you’re having trouble with this app at any time, hit the back button on your controller as this usually fixes the issue.

Download TVAppRepo from GitHub

Amazon Prime Video (Android)

Netflix’s biggest competitor, Prime Video, is also available on the Go through sideloading. If you’re a Prime member this will give you access to thousands of movies & TV shows at no cost, and the ability to rent or purchase thousands more.

Just like the Netflix Android app, Prime Video allows you to download videos for

The original Borderlands 2 is a hallmark shooter in the game industry. Not only did it help popularize the idea of “looter shooters” like Destiny, Warframe, and even Gunheart or From Other Suns by adapting Diablo-style gameplay to a an action shooter setting, but it still stands, over six years later, as one of the funniest games ever made. Gearbox’s writing here is rivaled perhaps only by Valve’s Portal series and it establishes an addictive gameplay loop of killing enemies, watching loot explode out of their bodies like confetti, and doing tons of amazing things over and over again for dozens of hours.

Now, Gearbox and 2K Games are back to try and replicate that magic once again (for a third time if you count the existing Handsome Collection on PS4 and Xbox One) with Borderlands 2 VR. They’ve crammed the entire base game onto PSVR from top to bottom (mostly) with a few tweaks along the way to make it feel a little bit fresh. The results are mostly positive.

In Borderlands 2 VR you take on the role of one of four Vault Hunters, sent to the lawless and ravaged world of Pandora to track down ancient, valuable treasure. Upon your arrival your plans are derailed by the twisted and deranged Handsome Jack, forcing you to go on a conquest across Pandora to fight off his minions, loot hundreds (perhaps even thousands) of guns, and take the fight to him in an absolutely ludicrous and wacky adventure.

What makes Borderlands 2 VR so special is its loot randomization. Each time you kill an enemy or open a loot container like a chest the game randomly decides what to give you. It might be a shotgun, or an assault rifle, or revolver, or something else and all of its stats like damage, fire rate, accuracy, and clip size are randomly picked. Then there are alternate effects like elemental damage (flame and electric for example), blowing up when you reload, exploding bullets, scopes, and more. Put all of that in a blender with a dash of unique designs and styles and it’s easy to understand how they arrived at the number “87 bazillion guns.”

To be clear though, Borderlands 2 VR does not include any multiplayer at all. Despite the fact that the entire series has always been predicated off of rampant and chaotic cooperative fun, it’s entirely absent from this version of the game. Not only that, but none of the post-launch DLC (of which there was a lot) is included either. And finally, even though it seems like an obvious fit in the same vein as DOOM VFR, Farpoint, and Firewall Zero Hour, Borderlands 2 VR on PSVR does not support the PS Aim Controller — it’s PS Move or DualShock 4 only.

Even without the DLC though Borderlands 2 VR still packs at least a solid 30+ hours of content and if you aim to clear most of the side quests, New Game+ modes, and farm for the most powerful and legendary gear that

VR training systems company VR Motion Corp and automotive giant Jaguar Land Rover are each trialing a new device called ‘OtoTech’ which is claimed to solve VR locomotion-induced sickness.

Motion sickness is caused when the balance signals from your inner ear disagree with the visual signals from your eyes. In VR games with locomotion simulated by a handheld controller, your eyes see movement but your inner ear doesn’t feel it, because you’re not really moving.

OtoTech was developed by Samuel Owen through his new company Otolith Labs. Strapped in just behind the ear with a headband, the non-invasive gadget generates vibrations against the inner ear nerve responsible for transmitting balance information to the brain. Owen says the device is comfortable and “virtually silent”.

Owen believes the vibrations flood the inner ear with “white noise” and that it causes the brain to ignore the input from the inner ear. Owen said they’ve observed no other effects of the gadget other than your your brain being more comfortable with simulated movement.

Owen’s device attracted attention from VR training systems supplier VR Motion. VR Motion provides virtual driver training systems to the USAF, among other clients. CEO Keith Maher told us that they have historically seen a 20-30% sickness level among trainees. Recently, the company started using the OtoTech in their systems. Maher said he doesn’t want to make any claims before Otolith receives FDA approval, but that it “enhanced the VR experience” for their clients, and that they haven’t seen any side effects at all.

Researchers at Jaguar Land Rover conducted a double blind study of the device which was submitted to the Journal of Vestibular Study. Owen tells us that, based on the “positive results” of this study, which could be published early next year, a second study is being planned with Coventry University.

Owen said the solution works seated or standing and that he’s focused on getting FDA approval for the device’s sickness prevention claims. If this technology ever makes it to the consumer market, developers could make large open world environments that players could move around in with a controller without worrying about feeling discomfort.

We are optimistic but skeptical until the results of the trials of this device are made public. Even if it works, it is possible that the technique only works for certain people, or that it only works for particular types of virtual motion. We’ll keep you updated on any further news about OtoTech or any other devices using a similar technique.